Best noon thing

I have a new obsession thanks to boing boing: listening for vocal fry. This speech pattern, in which the voice dips down into a gravelly lower register, was once considered a defect, but is now apparently common, especially among college-aged women. As my daughter is too young for this and I don’t recall hearing my nieces do it, I appealed to a friend who is a college professor, who responded,

Yes! So obnoxious. Makes the speaker sound like an idiot. Started in the early oughts, yes? Some reality tv celeb or something popularized it. Teenage girls eat it up. Hear it all the time in classes. Grating.

When I pressed for an example, he told me to try the Kardashians. So I did. I picked a random 14-second clip from Kim Kardashian’s youtube page and heard at least two, and possibly three examples.

Now I’m not going to be able NOT to hear this.

Why is this a Best Noon Thing? Because I like learning new things, even if I have to encounter Kardashians to do it.